He won't know
by HautkopfofUlm
Summary: Guerrero and Winston clash over their friendship with Chance as the dire experiences of the last few days force them to reach an agreement that won't make either of them happy. No Ilsa/Ames. COMPLETE as promised. Keep dem reviews coming!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: May contain peanuts but no intend for copyright infringement.**

**A/N: Part one of a two-chapter story, kindly betaed by weapon13WhiteFang. **

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"So, what's it gonna be now? You're gonna kill me?"

Guerrero snorted contemptuously.

"Dude, why would I wanna do that. Your're not even worth the trouble. I've got everything I need. I'm just gonna lean back and watch you trip over yourself, but until then you and I will live perfectly happy lives. Seeya!"

Sporting his sassiest grin Guerrero turned his back on the mortified face of the corrupt firm boss he had grilled these last few minutes and saw himself out of the glass-wall office.

On his way back to the car Guerrero continued grinning. He couldn't believe the pathetic white-collar criminal considered himself bad-ass enough to be worth being killed by Guerrero. In reality he had already generated a mental list of the many ways Dawson and his computer company could be of use in the future. For now he had only claimed a rather useful program he probably could have written himself, but really, wasn't it better to save some time and "make some new friends" along the way?

The assassin was heading for the caddie when suddenly he _felt_ a sound. He knew what it was. His instinct screamed for him to drop, but instead he turned around. He paid for this mistake when the shockwave pushed against his core and sent him flying all the way back to his car where he was brought to an instant, painful halt. He felt the heat wash over his body while he slid down the side of the Aldo, then everything went black for a few seconds. As he forced his eyes open it took him a moment to take in the sight: the building he just left had gone up in a huge ball of flames before his eyes and was now nothing but a huge burning pile of debris, dust and smoke.

Guerrero's ears hurt and he shook his head to get rid of the dizzying ringing. He knew he needed to clear away immediately if he didn't want the whole city looking for him as the bomber, so he willed himself back on his feet. He had to lean against his car as the ringing in his ears became even louder and the ground under his feet seemed to shift awkwardly backwards. He fished the car key from his pocket and actually tried to insert it a few times before he realized that he could open his car with the remote. When he pressed the button he found that at least part of the noise in his ears had come from the car's alarm system. It felt natural to sit in the relative silence for a while, but as Guerrero heard the first sirens in the distance he peeled out of the parking lot.

He had only been on the road for a couple of minutes when his cell began to ring. The sound didn't quite agree with his sore head. He knew who it was without looking as he answered the call.

"Dude, it wasn't me."

"Well, you sound alive enough." Chance answered.

"Huh?" It hadn't even come to Guerrero that Chance had called to make sure his friend was still in one piece.

"It's all over the news, Guerrero. When I heard the company name, you know I got a bit-"

"WHAT? Is there any footage of me?"

"You mean you were still there when the place exploded? What's going on, Guerrero?"

"Chance, _is there_ any footage of me at the scene?"

"Relax, news chopper isn't even there yet. Where're you at anyway?"

"I- whooaah!" Guerrero jerked the wheel violently as his car swerved to the opposite lane.

"What happened? You still there?"

Since when had driving straightforward become so hard? And why did he feel like everyone was staring at him?

"Cell phone driving, dude. Should be illegal in all fifty states. Headed to you now." With that he cancelled the call and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

When Chance opened the door for Guerrero the latter received the same appalled look he had seen on the drivers' faces on the streets.

"Yep, looks like you were there alright. Sit down, we need to clean those cuts." Only then did Guerrero notice the blood on his shirt. Some of it seemed to come from his face, but there were also cuts in the fabric. Exploding office building equalled flying pieces of glass. He could've thought of that sooner.

"'_We_'? I don't think so, dude."

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When Winston heard the news he did something he had often chastened himself for back in his days as a cop: he followed a hunch and drove to Chance's loft. As he let himself in, he found Guerrero on the couch, topless, applying butterfly bandages to what seemed to be several gashes on his torso. His face looked like he had starred in a damn _Saw_ movie. Guerrero all but ignored him. Chance's eyes were drawn to the TV where a chaos of a huge black smoke column and a lot of fire fighters unfolded. As Guerrero silently added another bloody gauze ball to the compilation on the table Winston put two and two together. His hunch had been right.

"Explain. Now."

Guerrero shrugged. "Gotta go wash my face, dude." He grabbed the bottle of disinfectant from the table and stole past Winston. Winston knew better than to stop him and instead took his place on the couch.

"Guerrero not in the mood for explaining? Why am I not surprised. Please tell me he had a run-in with a cat or something." Chance shook his head no and put the TV on mute.

"Winston, he's got nothing to do with this."

"You're telling me his being there the exact second a building is reduced to a pile of ashes was _coincidental_?"

"I'm telling you he didn't do it." The way he said it left no room for argument. Winston trusted Chance, he just wasn't sure if he trusted Chance trusting Guerrero. However, this was not the time to discuss this.

"Okay. Guess he'd know better than to blow himself up, anyway … do I even wanna know what crazy-ass insanity he was trying to achieve there?"

"He just went to get a program the company had invented. Got it without problems. Real small fry."

"Yeah, without problems my ass. Be honest with me here, Chance, do you _really_ think that this is a coincidence? That someone decides to get back on Dawson the day, hell the minute Guerrero's around?"

"Don't know, Winston. _We_ don't know. If not, we'd have to assume that this is about Guerrero, not Dawson."

"As many reasons I can think of to kill Guerrero, there are easier ways you know."

"I heard that, Winston, despite the jet engines in my ears." came Guerrero's voice from behind him. He joined them on the couch and watched as the number of people assumed to have been in the building climbed to forty-eight.

"There were a lot of talented programmers in that building."

"Oh is that your only concern now? That the hacker community misses out on its next messiah? I see the explosion didn't knock any common sense into you."

"Dude, I'm saying that this was with a certain probability about one of their customized programs or about a person who wrote one. If this was about me, the timing would've been a real piece of shit. Wouldn't they wanna make sure I was still _in_ the building when they blow it up? Why not put the bomb in the caddie? How's that for common sense."  
"So to you this is just a wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time kind of thing?"

"Stranger things have happened, dude. In 1975 a guy on a moped was killed by a taxi and exactly one year later, the man's brother-"

"I know the story, thanks, Ripley. So now you're just gonna creep back to your little Odditorium and pretend that nothing ever happened?"

"No. With the help of this wondrous apparatus called a computer I'm going to find out who did this and why."

"Why?"

"I had plans for Dawson. Now I'll have to find a new B-list computer company criminal."

***tbc***

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**You hear that high-pichted noise in _your_ ears? That's my obligatory desperate outcry for REVIEWS!**


	2. Chapter 2

_*two days later*_

Winston looked around. The contact he was to meet with had a thing for unusual meeting places, but an inoperative submarine-turned-museum was extravagant even for him. He could see the advantages though: a lot of crowd to hide in, little open space to be observed from.

As Winston pretended to read some of the info signs, he noticed a figure approach him. Looking up, he expected to find his friend amongst a lot of tourists. Instead his eyes fixed on- _Guerrero?_ He was running towards him. In horror, Winston saw him bring up his gun and aim it right at his head. Before Winston could react Guerrero fired.

Everything went pitch-black and quiet. Not in Winston's head, as he noticed after a moment, but in the submarine. Guerrero had taken out the main switch box behind him. Of course, that didn't explain why the emergency generator didn't spring to life, but as Winston was about to ask Guerrero what in the hell it all meant, it hit him: Guerrero was trying to hide them. In a confined space like a Second World War submarine, there weren't an awful lot of options to become invisible, so Guerrero had opted for the Evil-no-see-tactic. What evil this was supposed to be eluded Winston.

He listened intently, but the only sound he could make out was Guerrero's breathing right next to him. In a literally silent understanding they stayed as quiet as possible. Then Winston felt Guerrero's hand on his arm, pushing him gently to the right. Winston got the hint and without a noise moved to the right of the nearest door for cover. Guerrero's hand disappeared and he knew the assassin had taken position at the other side of the hatch.

As they waited for God knew what in the impenetrable darkness, many questions formed in Winston's head. How did Guerrero even know about the meeting? Where in the world were all the tourists from before? And _who_ the hell were they hiding from?

Winston had lost sense of time when suddenly four quick shots were fired in a row. Three of them came from right next to him, one from the other side of the bulkhead. Another minute passed in complete silence, then Winston heard a click and the beam of a flashlight blinded him. When his eyes got somewhat used to the light, he found Guerrero crouched with his back against the metal wall, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other.

Guerrero pointed them both down the room next door, exposing as little of his body as possible. Then he motioned for Winston to get up and cautiously they made their way through the door and back to the entrance of the submarine. Winston finally dared to pull his own gun, but as they passed through the next compartment, the only two thugs he found were apparelled with clean headshots. Guerrero didn't deign to look at them. The rest of the journey was over in a few seconds: climb up to the main hatch, run to Guerrero's awkwardly parked car, floor it. Winston felt he didn't have much of a choice as the still silent man next to him was the one who held all the answers to this mess.

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Guerrero was driving like a mad man and his eyes were fixed on the road. Winston was through with being ignored. Too many questions had bottled up over the past minutes, but as he tried to formulate them all at once, all he came up with was:

"What _the hell_ WAS THAT?"

Guerrero just glanced at him and took another daring turn, so Winston chose a more specific approach:

"What were you doing there? How did-"

"What was _I_ doing there? Dude, _I_ pulled you out of this! What were _you_ doing there?"

Winston wasn't to cooperate with the maniac next to him. Besides, it was none of Guerrero's business. "I have a thing for submarines."

Guerrero shook his head and took another turn, then slammed on the brakes and stalled the engine. Winston saw that Guerrero had taken them to some harbour complex outside the city. Nowhere near civilization. Guerrero turned to face him.

"This is important, Winston, so stop the prancing. Did you want to take them on alone, is that it?"

"WHAT? What are you talking about! I don't even know who _they_ are or why _they_ would be there. I… came there on request of a friend who needed a favour."

"What friend. How did he contact you. How did you contact him."

"How's that important? Did you hack into my email account again? How did _you_ know about the meeting? What made you come there? And who are those blokes you took out? _Answer me_!"

"Email, huh?" Guerrero turned to face the front again and for the better part of five minutes stared at the wheel of his caddie. Winston knew he would only be ignored again if he spoke, so he watched silently as Guerrero's mental cogs turned and finally locked.

"I did some digging into the Dawson incident. At first I didn't come up with much, but a couple hours ago the submarine popped up. Figured whoever vaporized Dawson's fancy glass globe would hit there next. So I went to check it out. Saw your car in the parking lot. Didn't make any sense at first, but it's all coming together now."

"First you, then me. Someone's trying to get to us. But how?"

"My guess is they wanted to seal all the visitors into the submarine, then gas them through the old ventilation system."

Winston looked shocked. "You sure?"

"That's what I'd do, but I was too busy evacuating the fucking Kursk back there and separate you from the crowd to ask the perps what they had planned for you. When they saw their potential victims file out, they went in after me before I could find you."

"How did you evacuate all the-"

"Not important, Winston. What's important is that this wasn't a coincidence. Neither was the explosion. But when they failed to get rid of me, instead of trying again they made a move on you. Means neither of us was the actual target."

"Chance."

Guerrero nodded. They remained silent as they let this sink in.

"Chance's in danger, we need to warn him."

"No we don't. Dude, if they wanted Chance dead they would've made their move already. Instead they chose us. They want to make him suffer. And not only by killing us, but by killing as many innocent people as possible with us. Also supplies them with a nice diversion, so no one comes asking questions about us. With the whole city in general terror panic, no one cares about individuals."

"I don't know. Could be a personal vengeance thing. That would mean they merely started with the less important and now work their way up to the star prize. No offense."

"In that case they wouldn't change the order and just skip me after the failed attempt. No, this has been only about Chance from the beginning. Someone knows that living with guilt to him is worse than death. They can make him suffer more if they don't kill him off."

"But what went wrong with Dawson?"

"I did. I didn't take a simple program from him. They invented a nice little gadget that detects errant radio frequencies, such as the ones of remote controlled bomb triggers. It blocks them within a certain range. I tested the damn thing when I was with Dawson and something came up. Thought it was one of Dawson's doohickeys to make sure I wasn't recording our conversation, so I didn't pay it much attention. When I walked back to my car the disturb signal became too weak and the bomb went off."

"The 'damn thing' saved your life, Guerrero."

"Yeah well, it didn't save the other forty-one, did it." Guerrero actually sounded pissed. He checked their surroundings in the side mirror. _'Because I walked it out of the building.'_ Winston completed Guerrero's thoughts for himself.

"All those people. They died because someone wants to make Chance suffer." he reasoned. "Man, that's cruel."

Guerrero now looked directly at him. "Which is why Chance won't know."

Winston's blood froze at the sound of those words.

"I can't do that, Guerrero. Chance has a right to know. Besides the wirepuller behind all this is still out there and we need Chance's help to identify and stop him before he kills more people."

"_That_ was not a suggestion, Winston. I can handle whoever's behind this, I just need a little more time. Chance won't know that this was about him, _do you understand_?"

"And what are we supposed to tell him, genius? You don't think he'll let the Dawson-thing go just like that, do you."

"That's my problem, dude. I'll come up with something."

Winston saw where this conversation was headed and he didn't like it one bit.

"No. Nooo! I know your moral standards are far beyond saving, but you won't degrade _me_ to your crooked little ideas of friendship. Chance is my friend and I respect him, I _need_ to tell him the truth!"

"Nice speech, dude. Only it'd kill him. Maybe not literally, but look how the whole Katherine-story messed him up. Multiply that by forty-one and there won't be any Chance left. It's not like we have a choice here."

"Katherine was different. He was in love with her."

"You really think Chance would suffer more for one girl he loved than for forty-one people he didn't even know? He's not like that, dude. For him nobody deserves to die and his falling for a girl doesn't make her deserve to die even less… Winston, how hard do you want to make this?"

"How hard do I- you don't seem to get the point here!"

"The point, dude, is that Chance can't handle it, so he can't know about it." Guerrero was reaching the end of his rope.

"Oh so that's all there is to it for you? Look, you might not give a damn, but his trust means something _to me_, so how _dare_ you demand that from me? You would betray him like that? That's just pathetic, even for you! What kind of a friend-"

"Dude stop." Guerrero leaned forward. "You think this is fun for me? I can only do this _because_ I consider Chance a friend. You need to stop thinking about your own sorry ass here Winston and realize that your so-called 'betrayal' is nothing more than us protecting Chance from himself. So you _will_ do it."

"Being lied to by the people he considers his friends ain't gonna protect him from nothing! How can you even live with yourself?"

Guerrero somewhat slumped at these words. Then suddenly, with a snappy "I give you five minutes to make up your mind." he got out of the car and slammed the door shut.

Winston hadn't bargained for Guerrero to react quite as impulsively, but it was good to bring some space between them. He couldn't believe that Guerrero asked, no, demanded to make a pact with him. It felt like betraying Chance in more than one way. It felt like he was betraying himself. And on top of all that he would have to _trust Guerrero_. _Oh boy_. But he knew Chance. And he knew that Guerrero knew him even better and that he was right: What choice did they have?

Guerrero finally returned and wordlessly sat back down behind the wheel. In the silence that followed Winston had to admit to himself that the man was putting his friendship with Chance at risk just as much as he was. And that Guerrero had to trust _him_ just as he had to trust Guerrero. That thought almost comforted him until he realized that there was still a huge difference between them. And they would not move until he was ready to give up his much-valued views on loyalty.

"You haven't answered my question." he revived the conversation.

"What- how I live with it? You don't want to know that, dude. What you want to know is how _you _will be able to live with it. You're only afraid you'll end up like me."

Winston sighed. "Guess we'll find out."

Guerrero started the engine.

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**I know this chapter might come across as rather odd with the no-talk submarine introduction and the huge dialogue that followed, but I still trust you to review. What choice do you have?;)**


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